{"id":6163,"date":"2025-10-23T13:56:22","date_gmt":"2025-10-23T13:56:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/soft-cell-i-suppose-you-could-say-it-was-a-strange-career-path-but-there-were-some-amusing-moments-151815\/"},"modified":"2025-10-23T13:56:22","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T13:56:22","slug":"soft-cell-i-suppose-you-could-say-it-was-a-strange-career-path-but-there-were-some-amusing-moments-151815","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/soft-cell-i-suppose-you-could-say-it-was-a-strange-career-path-but-there-were-some-amusing-moments-151815\/","title":{"rendered":"Soft Cell: \u201cI suppose you could say it was a strange career path. But there were some amusing moments\u2026\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Soft Cell story is one of wild, hedonistic success. Here, Marc Almond and Dave Ball confess all \u2013 about controversial performance art, New York\u2019s depraved club scene, the perils of having hit records and their own eventual downfall. One bystander claims: \u201cIt was sex, drugs and electronic rock\u2019n\u2019roll!\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Click here and subscribe to Uncut<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The Art Of Falling Apart<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The Soft Cell story is one of wild, hedonistic success. Here, Marc Almond and Dave Ball confess all \u2013 about controversial performance art, New York\u2019s depraved club scene, the perils of having hit records and their own eventual downfall. One bystander claims: \u201cIt was sex, drugs and electronic rock\u2019n\u2019roll!\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Originally published in Uncut 257 (October 2018).<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThere was always a darkness around Soft Cell,\u201d says Marc Almond, warming to the story of his band\u2019s relentlessly perverse progress through the 1980s. \u201cAnd that fuelled Dave\u2019s darkness, and it fuelled my darknesses\u2026 Our whole career, really, the whole Soft Cell story, was just a miasma of darkness!\u201d<\/p>\n

But not today. It\u2019s been quite a year for the man christened Peter Mark Sinclair Almond in Southport, 1957, and on this sunny midsummer morning in Mayfair he\u2019s positively beaming. First, he was made one of the great unlikely OBEs of modern times in the New Year\u2019s honours. Then, one of the badgers on Springwatch was named after him (\u201cOf course, that\u2019s the thing I\u2019m proudest of,\u201d he smiles), confirming his status as national treasure.<\/p>\n

And now, 40 years after he first met Dave Ball at Leeds Poly, Soft Cell have announced a 10-disc career defining boxset \u2013 Keychains & Snowstorms \u2013 and a sold-out gig at the O2 at the end of September.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe talked about doing the boxset and then I said, \u2018Shall we do a one-off show?\u2019\u201d he explains, dressed as always, from dyed hair to pointed boots, in immaculate black. \u201cI can\u2019t do a tour. So let\u2019s do one big show \u2013 but where? Someone suggested the Albert hall, but I said, \u2018If we\u2019re going to do it, let\u2019s do it massively. So I said, \u2018What about the O2?\u2019 It sold out in a weekend! I don\u2019t think we ever had that much faith in ourselves, to be very honest. I always imagined our fans were about 200 people in bedsits.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nursing a mid-afternoon whisky in a venerable Soho boozer, Dave Ball is still shocked. \u201cI mean, bloody Nora!\u201d he cackles, still a Blackpool boy after all these years of city life. \u201cThe last time I went to the O2 I saw U2! It\u2019s such a massive place. It\u2019s going to be terrifying! But I hear there\u2019s a whole backstage recreational area they built for Michael Jackson in 2009 and it\u2019s still there. I\u2019m determined to have look round there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe dealt in extremities\u201d<\/h2>\n

After all this time, Soft Cell still feel like trespassers, an odd couple of arty, insecure, northern outsiders who walked through the wrong door one day in 1981 and wound up in 20th-century pop art legend. of all the schemers and dreamers who defined the golden age of British pop 1979 \u2013 1982, Almond and Ball seem to exemplify more than anyone else the absurd, exhilarating possibilities of the times. \u201cWe dealt in extremities, really,\u201d says Ball. \u201cIt was either ultra pop or very dark. It was a bit bipolar. We covered the whole range of human feeling\u2026 from a very twisted vantage point.\u201d<\/p>\n

The new boxset, which Ball has worked on for the past two years, and which diligently charts the career from Leeds Poly performance art, through sensational, accidental pop success, catastrophic hangover and on to the abortive early \u201900s comeback, is subtitled The Soft Cell Story, as though it were some classically melodramatic MGM biopic. Who could possibly do justice to such a production? You imagine Fassbinder at his most lurid, working from a devilish script by Joe Orton, with assistance from Alan Bennett for the odd dollop of northern sauce.<\/p>\n

\u201cA film could be interesting,\u201d admits Almond \u201cbut I don\u2019t know who could do it. It\u2019s such a mad story. We didn\u2019t do anything the conventional way. The minute we got a big hit record with \u2018Tainted Love\u2019 was the beginning of the end of the band, really. That\u2019s just how it was: it really was the art of falling apart.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was the art of falling apart\u201d<\/h2>\n

Even at the start, Soft Cell\u2019s story was informed by a degree of drama. This was 1977, and Dave Ball, resplendent in Doc Martins and Levi\u2019s, enrolled at Leeds Polytechnic. \u201cIt was my first day,\u201d he remembers. \u201cI was wandering around, looking for the art department. I saw this guy with short dyed-black hair, leopard skin top, gold lam\u00e9 jeans and winklepickers. He was so obviously the perfect frontman.\u201d<\/p>\n

Initially, they came together when Almond heard the bleeps of Ball\u2019s new Korg synth and fancied he\u2019d found the soundtrack to his latest performance art piece (naked, smeared in cat food, draped in a swastika: the usual). They soon began writing songs and performing around Leeds, just as new romanticism hit the north. \u201cWe got lumped in with that, but we came out of more of a punk ethos,\u201d says Ball. \u201cPunk with synths.\u201d rather than the Blitz kids, the nascent Soft Cell aspired to some of the Ballardian chic of the Sheffield scene \u2013 Clock DVA, Cabaret Voltaire, original human League, along with the industrial thrum of Throbbing Gristle, Pere Ubu and Suicide. \u201cI was more into supermarkets and car crashes than bloody yachts in the Bahamas,\u201d says Ball. \u201cYou can\u2019t imagine Soft Cell doing a video on a yacht, can you? Maybe a sinking yacht.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Futurama 2 festival, which took place in Leeds in September 1980, was a turning point. on a bill that included Siouxsie & The Banshees, echo And The Bunnymen, The Psychedelic Furs and \u2013 naturally \u2013 Gary Glitter, the band played to over 2,000 people and earned an encore. Anni Hogan, who had just arrived in Leeds as student, and would go on to perform in Marc & The Mambas, was impressed. \u201cThere were a lot of bands playing, but it was Soft Cell who made the biggest impact on me,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was sex, drugs and electronic rock\u2019n\u2019roll!\u201d<\/h2>\n

\u201cI had seen them around town before \u2013 in my head I called them The Men In Black \u2013 but seeing them live\u2026 I thought the songs were incredible. The look was incredible. Eventually they had a room going in their house and I moved in. It was sex, drugs and electronic rock\u2019n\u2019roll!<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a very vibrant time in Leeds. Awful times in the country politically, but there was an amazing cultural backlash to that. I saw it all through Soft Cell\u2019s eyes. I got a job working at the Amnesia club and eventually I was asked to book the bands. So of course I booked Soft Cell and they did \u2018Tainted Love\u2019 for the first time. I remember Stevo was there.\u201d<\/p>\n

So much of Soft Cell\u2019s chaotic career path might be attributed to their choice of Stevo as a manager. In an era of magnificent mavericks, he might just have been the most wayward. \u201cThere was just something about him,\u201d remembers Almond. \u201cI remember meeting him for the first time: he had this grown-out human League haircut with all the roots showing and the \u00a0remnants of two-day-old blusher on his face. I didn\u2019t think of him as being like a 17-year-old. he was a barrow boy in a way, with the gift of the gab. he asked us to send him some music. So Dave borrowed some money from his mum and we made a little vinyl record, \u2018Mutant Moments\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were getting coins chucked at us by Spandau Ballet and Visage\u201d<\/h2>\n

Stevo included \u201cThe Girl With The Patent Leather Face\u201d on a sampler for his fledgling label, the Some Bizzare Album, alongside tracks by The The, Blancmange and Depeche Mode. The duo were particularly impressed by the latter.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe played with them in 1980 at Croc\u2019s in Rayleigh,\u201d remembers Almond. \u201cThey had all these beautifully prepared tracks, and they all looked fantastic. We, on the other hand, sounded awful.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were getting coins chucked at us by Spandau Ballet and Visage,\u201d laughs Ball. \u201cThey were shouting, \u2018Get back up north!\u2019 Rusty Egan told Stevo not to sign us. But you know, we were shit. It was a bit of a turning point for us. We knew we had to get it sounding better.\u201d<\/p>\n

The wheeling-dealing Stevo not only persuaded Phonogram to sign the pair as part of job lot with Nottingham new-wavers B-Movie \u2013 he also got Mute label boss Daniel Miller to produce \u201cMemorabilia\u201d. released in March 1981, the single turned around the band\u2019s reputation.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t think about trying to create a hit single\u201d<\/h2>\n

It became a club hit \u2013 making an impression as far afield as New York \u2013 but it failed to chart. hoping to recoup some of their advance, Phonogram put the band in the studio with house producer Mike Thorne and, searching for something more commercial, struck on a cover version the pair had started performing live.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe decided that we wanted to get a pop edge or rather a dance edge into our songs,\u201d says Almond. \u201cI was always DJing and Dave loved \u201960s soul music. So we thought what about if we try a couple of cover versions in our set? The Human League had just done \u2018You\u2019ve Lost That Loving Feeling\u2019, so Dave said, \u2018Why don\u2019t we do a northern Soul song?\u2019 he played me \u2018The night\u2019 by Frankie Valli. I thought that could be good. And then he played me a song by Gloria Jones that just seemed perfect\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Mike Thorne, a former tape operator for Deep Purple whose production credits included Wire\u2019s first three albums, remembers the first time he worked with Almond and Ball. \u201cPhonogram called me and said, \u2018We have a couple of interesting projects for you, but there\u2019s no money,\u2019\u201d he laughs. \u201cThey wanted me to do both B-Movie and Soft Cell\u2019s second singles. I thought, \u2018I can do two singles very quickly, one after another. But they\u2019re just going to feel rushed.\u2019 So I sent up the two singles in parallel. That might have made them feel like they were on a production line, but I was trying to give them space and perspective. It was exhausting for me \u2013 in the end we finished \u2018Tainted Love\u2019 at 2am.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t think about trying to create a hit single, no matter what Phonogram wanted,\u201d he insists. \u201cI never think of any project with a brief. I had the arrogance to think I knew what worked. I\u2019d been round the block several times.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAll hell broke loose\u201d<\/h2>\n

\u201cWhen the white labels of \u2018Tainted Love\u2019 went out to DJs, the vibe in the clubs was good, but it just kept getting bigger,\u201d remembers Ball. \u201cAnd then when the record was actually released it went straight into the charts. We went to Phonogram\u2019s office on Bond Street and there was this incredibly glamorous woman in an open-top Rolls Royce driving round playing \u2018Tainted Love\u2019 at full volume. It was a pretty good gimmick.\u201d<\/p>\n

The single entered the charts at No 62 in August 1981 and kept climbing. Eventually they were asked to appear on Top Of The Pops. It\u2019s fair to say that neither the BBC nor Phonogram were quite prepared for Soft Cell\u2019s debut on early-evening TV.<\/p>\n

Inspired by a combination of 1920s socialite Nancy Cunard, existential pin-up Juliet Gr\u00e9co and Siouxsie Sioux, Almond appeared draped in bracelets, blind with mascara, head to toe in black. \u201cThe record company just said, \u2018You can\u2019t go on dressed like that!\u2019 It became a battle, really. \u2018OK I will put on the biggest false eyelashes I possibly can\u2019\u2026 \u2018I will perform \u2018Bedsitter\u2019 in a leather cap I bought in a New York gay bar\u2026\u2019 It was gender-fluid playing before that was fashionable.\u201d It was to go down as one of all-time great Top Of The Pops debuts.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll hell broke loose,\u201d laughs Almond. \u201cPeople either wanted to murder me, mother me or fuck me. Or all three at the same time! It was scary but I felt really excited. It\u2019s about creating a moment, like that David Bowie and Mick Ronson moment, or the first time you saw Alice Cooper. I thought, \u2018Well yeah, that\u2019s what I wanted to do at art college: create a moment.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHey have this, try this, do this\u2026\u201d<\/h2>\n

The moment led them all the way to New York to record their debut album, Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really think the worst thing the record company could have done to us at that point was sending us to New York,\u201d says Almond matter-of-factly. \u201cWe were taken over first-class. I had hardly ever flown before, let alone been on a first-class flight. It was unbelievable. We got quite drunk. And then we had a limousine to take us into the city. And as we were driving, the first thing we heard on the radio was there\u2019s this new disease been discovered, it didn\u2019t have a name. But it had been affecting Haitians and gay men\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first night we were there, we were taken to what was left of Studio 54,\u201d he continues. \u201cSomeone put downers in my drink. There were half-naked people gyrating on the bar: boys, girls. People were coming up to me and saying, \u2018Hey have this, try this, do this\u2026\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cI was out of it with jetlag, culture shock\u2026 The whole time there\u2019s literally fire in the streets, you know, bins on fire. It was just like Taxi Driver! I sat on the curb and I just cried my eyes out. A stripper called Janet sat down with me and said, \u2018Oh come with me, Marc, I\u2019ll look after you.\u2019 And so we went to an after-hours club, and that\u2019s how it all started: the beginning of the end of Soft Cell! We hadn\u2019t even recorded a note of Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret yet!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a decadence\u201d<\/h2>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think it was quite the beginning of the end,\u201d demurs Ball. \u201cBut there was a decadence. You could get any drug you wanted and any kind of sexual thing\u2026 everything was available. In the drug department we excelled. It was like a big version of Soho. I loved it! We used to hire a limo \u2019cos it was cheaper than getting cabs. We\u2019d find a few of our lady friends and we had a stack of pills and cocaine and bottles of champagne. We\u2019d drive round from club to club and we\u2019d get in for free everywhere. It was actually quite a cheap night out!\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the colourful faces they met in New York was Cindy Ecstasy \u2013 the band\u2019s sometime dealer who ended up singing on some of their greatest singles. \u201cI think Marc and Stevo found her,\u201d recalls Ball. \u201cI remember them coming back to the apartment one night and saying, \u2018We\u2019ve got these capsules from Cindy, do you want one? It\u2019s called ecstasy and it\u2019s fucking amazing!\u2019 It was actually legal then. So we went out and I took one and I had the most amazing night ever. They were only $6 each. I said, \u2018Can I get 10?!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had two days to acclimatise before going into the studio,\u201d remembers Almond. \u201cAnd it was just all too much, you know? I remember Dave saying, \u2018Oh great, this equipment is fantastic!\u2019 I said, \u2018You just get on with making the record and I\u2019ll get on with having a good time. Just call me when you need to do need to the vocals!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t make records on drugs\u201d<\/h2>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t anticipate how New York would affect them,\u201d says Mike Thorne. \u201cI knew they were keen to go there. I just wanted to make the record in the right circumstances, and they were delighted with the prospect. The only thing that would have stopped me taking them was if they hadn\u2019t wanted to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fuelled by relentless hedonism and art-school impudence, the group embarked on one of the finest singles runs of the early \u201980s, from the kitchen-sink psychosis of \u201cBedsitter\u201d to the pink-flamingo romance of \u201cSay Hello Wave Goodbye\u201d and the magnificent melancholy of \u201cTorch\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first track we did in New York was \u2018Bedsitter\u2019, because the label needed a follow-up to \u2018Tainted Love\u2019,\u201d remembers Ball. \u201cIn those days, you had to put the tapes on a plane to send back to the label. We got a phone call from London from [A&R] Roger Ames and he just said, \u2018I don\u2019t like it!\u2019 We said, \u2018Oh piss off!\u2019 But it got to No 4! Then we released \u2018Torch\u2019, probably our best song, but we didn\u2019t include it on an album. I suppose you could say it was a strange career path. But there were some amusing moments\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

It was an incredible, imperial period of sustained work by a band supposedly mainlining everything New York had to offer.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t make records on drugs\u201d<\/h2>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t make records on drugs,\u201d laughs Ball. \u201cI\u2019ve tried many, many times and failed miserably! Of course, we would party hard. We did a lot of ecstasy, but we also did a lot of acid. And a lot of coke\u2026 and speed. But coke was the only drug I did in the studio, if I was flagging. But we didn\u2019t work long hours anyway. Start at 11 and finish at 6, which was good. It gave us more time to party.\u201d<\/p>\n

Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret peaked at No 5 in the UK charts \u2013 alas, they were kept from rising higher by fellow synth champions The Human league (Dare) and Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark (Architecture And Morality). The Art Of Falling Apart \u2013 the follow-up to Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret \u2013 was recorded in the autumn of 1982, with Mike Thorne again producing in New York. Relations with Phonogram \u2013 which had begun to deteriorate \u2013 soon came to breaking point when the label insisted on promoting the single \u201cNumbers\u201d with a free copy of \u201cTainted Love\u201d. The move so incensed Almond that he and Stevo raced to the Phonogram office, handcuffed a secretary to a radiator, threw a fire extinguisher through a plate glass door and smashed Status Quo\u2019s gold discs.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can understand the label were a bit distressed,\u201d admits Ball with wry understatement. \u201c\u2018Numbers\u2019 is not everyone\u2019s idea of a pop single. A song about a book about a gay man having multiple partners. Especially at the beginning of the Aids epidemic. Probably not the best timing.\u201d The promotional treadmill became intolerable, culminating in an absurd appearance on Tiswas, the Saturday-morning children\u2019s TV show. There, Almond almost drowned in a paddling pool, sat upon by several members of the Welsh rugby team, surrounded by cheering school kids.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were both going through breakdowns\u201d<\/h2>\n

\u201cWe were both going through mental breakdowns at this time,\u201d admits Almond. \u201cIt was too much too soon, you know, doing two, then three albums in New York. Dave hated doing live stuff at that time. I was bored stiff in the studio. And we sat down, when we were recording The Last Night In Sodom, and I said, \u2018I don\u2019t really want to do this any more,\u2019 and he said, \u2018I don\u2019t really want to do this any more either.\u2019 I think we had a tour to do in America and everything, so we were just as anarchic as possible and it was just a shambles, as most Soft Cell live things ended up being.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we should have just taken a break, we should have not made it so dramatically The End. I should have done Marc & The Mambas, he could have done some things that he was doing. And we could have come back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, despite everything, 40 years on, the most perfectly perverse pop act of the 1980s is shaping up for the most unlikely of happy endings. \u201cWith Soft Cell, everything just seemed to go wrong, even when we came back in 2000, 2001,\u201d reflects Almond. \u201cBut I think what we\u2019ve done now is we\u2019ve finally got rid of the poison. It just had to be me and Dave, together. I\u2019m 60, heading on 61 now. I know I don\u2019t have the same intensity, but I didn\u2019t want Soft Cell to diminish. I wanted it go out in a big blaze of bright light. We get to do a great celebratory concert, maybe a couple of new tracks and just a new single to go with it and a great boxset. I think it\u2019s a great way to keep the name burning bright.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was like \u2018Tainted Love\u2019 being No 1 all over again!\u201d<\/h2>\n

For Record Store Day this year, Soft Cell released new extended versions of \u201cSay Hello Wave Goodbye\u201d b\/w \u201cYouth\u201d. Created by Ball using the original studio recordings, these \u2018reimaginings\u2019, were essentially Soft Cell\u2019s first sign of renewed activity for a decade. The O2 show, meanwhile, presented a greater risk: \u201cI like going out on those dangerous challenges,\u201d laughs Almond. \u201cEither it\u2019s just 3,000 people down the front all having a great time, but it\u2019s an absolute financial disaster. Or suddenly people who haven\u2019t seen us in 17 years realise this is the last chance they\u2019ll ever get to see Soft Cell on stage together.\u201d<\/p>\n

He likens the speed at which the show sold out as a \u201cshock\u2026 It was like \u2018Tainted Love\u2019 being No 1 all over again!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can look back at all those wrong decisions, but we still made something that worked out,\u201d concludes Ball. \u201cThat\u2019s what makes interesting bands, isn\u2019t it? look at the great bands \u2013 not that I\u2019m comparing us \u2013 like the Stones, how many fuck-ups have they had? The Soft Cell story is pretty classic. It\u2019s almost Shakespearean, isn\u2019t it?\u201d<\/p>\n

A lot of Shakespeare plays end up with everyone stabbing each other, piles of dead bodies and the stage awash with blood.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell,\u201d he cackles, with that characteristic, darkly hilarious, northern Soft Cell laugh, \u201cthere\u2019s still time for that.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The post Soft Cell: \u201cI suppose you could say it was a strange career path. But there were some amusing moments\u2026\u201d<\/a> appeared first on UNCUT<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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